ACADA

Saturday, 8 August 2015

Faatimah Knight,
a Muslim student at Chicago Theological Seminary, is breaking down
religious barriers in order to help rebuild the eight southern Black churches
recently set ablaze. Within a ten-day span, several Black churches were burned
down in Florida, Georgia, Tennessee and both Carolinas. Respond with Love
is theLaunchGood campaign set up
by Ms. Knight to help rebuild the churches destroyed following the massacre
at Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, SC. With three days left in the
campaign, Faatimah, along with Ummah Wide, Muslim
Anti-Racism Collaborative and the Arab
American Association of New York have raised $81,741 of their
$100,000 goal in just 12 days.

“We wanted to show that as a Muslim
community, their pain did not go unnoticed by us—that we did, if fact, feel
deeply for their loss… The Muslim community and the Black community are
connected in integral ways, one cannot tell the story of one in America without
telling the story of the other. We hope that these churches might stand tall
again as a testament to the power of human goodness over human vileness and to
one day be a place where God’s name is oft-remembered.”- Faatimah Knight to NBC
News

Faatimah and her friends initially set out
to raise just $500 to send flowers to Emanuel AME Church, but overshot
their goal when they ended up raising $900. From there, the LaunchGood campaign
was established and has garnered the attention of many influential social media
outlets– Mashable, BuzzFeed and Yahoo!, just to name a few. Such a response
from a community that experiences similar unfair and even barbaric treatment is
not only heartwarming, but also a symbolic gesture of love and support for all
those who wish to divide us.

“And were it not that Allah
checks the people, some by means of others, there would have been demolished
monasteries, churches, synagogues, and mosques in which the name of Allah is
much mentioned. And Allah will surely support those who support Him. Indeed,
Allah is Powerful and Exalted in Might.” [Surah al-Hajj (20): 40]